2009

HP5916 : The Neap, Hermaness, in winter

taken 15 years ago, 3 km from Burrafirth, Unst, Shetland Islands, Scotland

The Neap, Hermaness, in winter
The Neap, Hermaness, in winter
With Neapna Stack in the foreground. One for the geologists, as in winter the banded rocks are no longer obscured by breeding seabirds.

Shetland is full of spectacular and often ancient metamorphic rocks like this cliff, which is formed of gneiss banded with granitic intrusions. The age of these rocks is uncertain, but they are probably over 500 million years old. The rocks started out as sediments, probably sandy deposits, which were buried deep in the crust of the Earth by later deposition. This subjected them to extremes of temperature and pressure which brought them close to the point of melting. They were also intruded by bands of granitic rock, and the whole lot was deformed by what would appear to be complex folding, producing the ‘marble cake’ effect. Finally, they were uplifted and exhumed, probably by a combination of tectonic movement and surface erosion, with the structure further exposed by the relatively recent marine erosion which has formed the cliff itself.

Based on explanation from Anne Burgess, although any errors in the explanation are certainly mine.

See HP5916 : The Neap, Hermaness, in winter for a wider view.

Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Mike Pennington and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Category: Cliffs
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Hermaness Cliffs [21] · Neapna Stack [8] Other Photos: · The Neap, Hermaness, in winter Title Clusters: · The Neap, Hermaness, in winter [2] ·
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HP5916, 248 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Mike Pennington   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Sunday, 18 January, 2009   (more nearby)
Submitted
Sunday, 18 January, 2009
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! HP 594 161 [100m precision]
WGS84: 60:49.4049N 0:54.4907W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! HP 594 156
View Direction
NORTH (about 0 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Supplemental image
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